Back in July 2021 Rebellion’s Sniper Elite took it first foray into Virtual Reality, and I loved getting my hands on the series in the medium, as outlined in my review. The series is now returning on the Meta Quest with Winter Warrior, which I have been lucky enough to take an early look at some of the opening missions.
As with Sniper Elite VR, you will load into a headquarters, where its going to serve as training/tutorial on weapons and controls. It was good to see this return, as Winter Warrior might be someone’s first time playing the franchise in VR – and I think it was well implemented in the original release, so it makes sense to mimic it for this one.
This then opens up the story being told to you by your character ‘the partisan’, a former Italian resistance soldier, who is re-living his memories.
The first mission will see you infiltrating a Nazi outpost to destroy a prototype gun. While on the first mission you will find out the location of a general, this sets up the other mission I have had the chance to take a look at, as you go to the Villa to assassinate them.
With the two missions I have had the chance to play, it gave a good example of more open space and a close quarter location and both locations had their strong points. Where it is nice to be taking the long shots, using the sounds of the environments to muffle the sounds of your guns and getting the x-ray kill animations, its just an enjoyable to sneak around the Villa taking them out with a melee attack from behind or with a pistol.
What I was happy to see was the game offering native support for both bHaptics and the ForceTube, as did the original standalone offering. Having these at your disposal does great work with the immersion, as you feel each shot and kick of the guns – and having tried with both they are both implemented very well.
I also got the chance to check out Last Stand mode, which has you setting up camp against waves of enemies. This mode will see you having to think fast and on your feet, as you gather weapons, ammunition and set traps, before hunkering down and taking on increasing waves.
FINAL WORDS
From what I have played I am looking forward to delving more into Winter Warrior, with the two missions I have played taking place in two completely different settings, but each one being just as enjoyable as the other despite the more close quarter design of the second – it really has me excited for visiting more locations and taking out the Nazi presence. This little taster of what is coming has impressed me a lot, and taking into account it is running on a mobile device it looks great.
* Full Review dropping on November 30th 2023
